Infinity Scarf #2

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was wonderful. It was a nice and relaxing day for us. I had a surprise text from my baby brother asking us to drive up to LA to visit him and his lovely wife. He had a surprise for our kids. We went the day after to avoid holiday traffic. We all had such a nice visit. 
Now about my project. Lately I've been on a scarf-making craze. These are some of the fabrics that I have had in my cabinets for a very long time. The intention was to make something out of them when I bought the materials. It's one of those things that I just didn't have time to follow through.

Many Thanks and a Finished Craft

I hope you all had a fun and relaxing weekend.
I would like to thank everyone for your kind comments on my Starburst quilt. I am so honored to be chosen by Madame Samm as one of the top 2 for the day.

Holiday Towels

Christmas is creeping up on me. I haven't been able to get any holiday gifts sewing done at all due to working on my new site and sewing for the shop and a holiday fair this weekend. We were able to take a few days off to see family. We went to a gift shop and I saw these cute Christmas towels so I just had to take some pictures.

Jingle all the Way. This one the letters were fused onto the towel and machine embroidered.

The reindeer and snowman are done with felt and machine embroidered around the edges. They are all so cute.

It was fun to see all the holiday decorations. Hopefully I'll have some time after this weekend to start sewing some things for gift giving.

Tomorrow starts SewCalGal's Christmas Quilt Show so be sure to check it out and enter to win some awesome prizes.

Create with Paint Chips

Today, while waiting at the doctor's office for my turn. I sat and looked through the Traditional Homes magazine. I just had to take these pictures to share. I couldn't believe what they did with these paint chips. These are so pretty and very creative. Makes me want to go pick up some and create something :-)

Oven Mitt Tutorial

I have been needing to make new oven mitts since one of our kiddos sort of burnt the ones we had. I came home and I found the burned ones on the counter. It was kind of funny, there's huge holes on the sides of both oven mitts. I've finally gotten around to making new ones and thought I would share the tutorial with you. I was so happy I finally felt better after being under the weather for so long and getting back to sewing that I was just going to town cutting out all my pieces. Well, you should quilt all your layers together before cutting out your oven mitt. It will make life easier if you quilt everything before you cut out the mitts to put them together. The direction below is on how I did it.

Oven Mitt Tutorial

By Kim Sherrod

Supplies:

This will make two oven mitts.

1/3 yard main fabric
1/3 yard lining fabric
1/3 yard or scraps of batting to fit your oven mitt
1/3 yard Insul-Brite (you can find this at Joann's)
Cut 1 strip 2 1/2 x width of fabric from your main fabric or lining fabric for binding and loop.
Cardstock or heavy plastic template to create oven mitt template

1) Take cardstock or template plastic or your old oven mitt will do. Trace your oven mitt or take your hands and spread them out a little bit, trace around the outside of your hands. Go back and draw another line roughly 1" larger. This will give you your seam allowance plus some moving room. If hubby's hands are really big, use his hands.

2) Using your template, cut out your pieces. You will need 4 main fabric, 4 lining fabric, 4 batting and 4 insul-brite pieces.

3) Here's all your pieces cut out. You have your oven mitt pieces, binding and loop. Ignore the white strips of batting on the right side. That was a mistake, you won't need it.

4) Layer your pieces, from botton to top, lining, insul-brite, batting and main fabric. Quilt as desired.
Note my message at top: Quilt all pieces before cutting out your pattern.

Here they are all quilted.

5) Take your 2 1/2" strip and fold in half wrong sides together, press with hot iron. Unfold and you have a center crease. Take your long sides and fold edges to center of crease, press. Now fold in half and you have created your binding strip.
Take the strip and your oven mitt, place over top raw edge of oven mitt and sew in place. This creates your finished edge. Trim off excess and repeat for all oven mitt pieces.
You can add some stiffness to the binding and loop by cutting a piece of interfacing and ironing it onto the wrong side of the strip. This is optional.

Cut 2 - 6 1/2" pieces from remaining binding strip. Fold in half and place at an angle on the back side of the oven mitt. Sew in place. Do same for your second oven mitt.
Place your oven mitt pieces right sides together and sew along all sides, except top opening. That's it, you're done! Enjoy your new oven mitts.

Doll Clothes

My friend bought her daughter this doll and asked if I could make some clothes for it. I've never seen this doll before. It must be the new thing this year. It's a bit difficult to get her to stand for pictures, but here she is. My friend helped me cut out the pieces after I made the pattern. I finished these outfits Christmas week so my friend can give it to her daughter for Christmas.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Simple Beret

How about another simple beret? This is all done with one simple crochet stitch. I did this all in one sitting that's how easy it is. Like my lampshade? It's been very useful to put things on to take pictures of since I don't have a model to help me.

Crochet Beret

I have been crocheting since my sewing machines have to be serviced. I bought this variegated brown yarn from my local yarn shop for this beret. I love this yarn because it's a chunky weight and I can crochet this beret in no time. I love the lacy pattern but I am not keeping it. It's going to my friend. She loves hats of every kind and wears one every day. That's all for today. Have a super day!

Crochet Floral Hot Pad

How about a crochet hot pad to share today? I was looking at Creative Jewish Mom's website and saw a crochet hot pad she made. She directed viewers to the pattern for it. I found it at Free Craft Unlimited. I did pretty well until I got to the part where it says to fold the petals. See my first picture? I couldn't get it to fold right. Finally my husband tried it, still not quite right. I almost gave up folding, but then I just decided to flip the petals around instead of folding like the pattern says. It worked! If you go check it out and look at the picture in the pattern, the fold is not going in the same direction as mine. I am left handed and sometimes things turn out the opposite way.

This is how it's supposed to be folded, but I must be missing something, because it's not quite as full as the picture in the pattern. I'll have to try again later to see how it turns out.